


Hopeless

by FollyOfWinchester



Series: Nothing Good Will Come [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amulet Fic, Angst, Canon Compliant, Deleted Scenes, Episode: s05e16 Dark Side of the Moon, Episode: s05e17 99 Problems, Explicit Language, Extended Scene, Headcanon, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Missing Scene, Season/Series 05 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-23 09:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/924978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FollyOfWinchester/pseuds/FollyOfWinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel and Dean misunderstand each other and generally lose all hope. Set during and after s05e16 Dark Side of the Moon and during s05e17 99 Problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Before They Make Me Run

Cas reaches into his pocket and produces Dean’s necklace, “I don’t need this anymore.” Cas tosses it unceremoniously across the room at Dean, “It’s worthless.”

His necklace. He’d honestly nearly forgotten about it, but now, seeing it back in his hand... Cas having it with him had kind of become a symbol for their relationship to Dean and this, this felt like a high school break up. Bobby’s dead wife was right. Dean didn’t know the first thing about love. Whatever this thing between him and Cas is, was, whatever...it wasn’t love. It was just two fucked up, lost, hopeless rejects desperate for something to hold onto. And it was over.

Dean hears Sam pleading behind him. “Cas, wait.” 

_Come on, Sammy. God was our last hope. Now it’s hopeless. He’s hopeless. He’s gonna leave._ Even with Zachariah’s taint, his mom was right. Everyone leaves him. On cue, Cas disappears, and any of the life he had breathed back into Dean disappears with him.

Sam steps up beside him, “We’ll find another way. We can still stop all this Dean.”

_Yeah right, us and what angel? It’s over._ He decides to humor his brother, “How?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll find it. You and me. We’ll find it.”

_Thought not._ Dean grabs his dufflebag and heads for the door. This whole God thing, this whole Cas thing is just like everything else. He’ll just bury it down deep, forget about it, and move on. No reason to keep souvenirs. _Here’s looking at you, Cas._ He drops the necklace into the trash can with a dull clang and heads out to load the Impala.

~*~

Castiel stood in the middle of the parking lot of a liquor store, staring into the windows. 

He had sinned. Everything about his relationship with Dean had been a sin. Lust, greed, envy, sloth, it was as though he were checking down a list of things that angels should never do. Lucifer was right, they really were quite similar at this point. And apparently God wanted no part of his sinful downward spiral.

Why had God intervened at all, then? Why save such a rebellious, pathetic angel as himself only to abandon him at such a critical point? What could his reasoning possibly be?

The liquor store appeared to be unmanned this early in the morning. He teleported inside.

Was he truly similar to Lucifer? He had rebelled, yes, but against the archangels, not God, and for Dean and all of humanity, not against them. And God had saved him as a reward. Perhaps this was a test. Perhaps God wanted to make an example of him, as a fallen angel who rebelled for the right reasons and stopped the apocalypse. Well, he was tired of tests. He was tired of uncertainty. He was tired of fighting. He needed something, some kind of reassurance from God that he was on the right path, anything to reinforce his faith, not only in God, but in himself.

Now, he knew that reassurance was not coming, that he was on his own. He had failed Dean. Their last hope was lost. He was useless.

He carefully scanned the shelves for familiar labels and gathered three to four of each bottle he had ever seen Dean drink. Alcohol seemed to assist Dean in holding himself together in these types of hopeless situations. Perhaps imbibing copious amounts of alcohol would provide him with some kind of insight unavailable to him while sober. He collected the bottles on the roof of the building until he was satisfied with the volume that he had procured. 

Finally surrounded by a cache of more than 100 bottles of liquor, he lay down and looked up into the cloud dotted sky. He indulged himself and thought of Dean for a moment. He smirked. Dean would be proud of this extravagant alcohol supply if he were here right now. He would offer to help Castiel drink it. Afterward, perhaps Dean would fall prey to his lowered inhibitions and forget about the apocalypse just long enough for Castiel to finally learn what being inside him would feel like.

What would they be doing right now if the apocalypse was not looming over their heads? Castiel imagined his ideal existence, guarding Dean on hunts, watching over him as he slept in decrepit hotel rooms, and fornicating with him often. He should propose such an arrangement to Dean...if they somehow survived.

And without God’s assistance, that was almost certainly impossible.

He opened the first bottle and began to drink.

~*~


	2. Run Like Hell

“Head’s up.”

He looked up as Dean tossed a bottle of pills over to him. This was embarrassing. He had never had to take a pill before. He should not have had so much alcohol, or masturbated on the roof of that liquor store, or manifested nude in front of several customers later in the day on his mission to retrieve more alcohol. He really should not have done any of the things he had done since hearing the news from Joshua. He had gleaned no insights from his inebriation. He felt extremely foolish and like his head might explode at any moment. “How many should I take?”

Dean leaned casually against the hood of the Impala. “You? You should probably just down the whole bottle.”

At least he still had Dean despite his recent behavior. As long as he had Dean, there was still hope. “Thanks.” 

“Don’t mention it. Yeah, I’ve been there. I’m a big expert on deadbeat dads, so, yeah, I get it. I know how you feel.”

“How do you manage it?” Dean had been without the support of his father for a reasonable portion of his life. Perhaps it just took practice.

“On a good day you get to kill a whore.”

Yes, a focus on something else, like hunting, would probably also help. Suddenly Castiel noticed that Dean’s necklace was not hanging around his neck. Had he decided not to wear it? “Where is your necklace? You seemed desperate to have it back when I originally took it from you.”

“You said it was worthless, so I, uh, I got rid of it.”

It was indeed worthless in that it would not help to find God anymore, but Castiel had somehow expected Dean to keep it. He dismissed the thought.

Dean looked coldly over at him. “Don’t worry. I got the message. We don’t need to have the talk.”

Castiel nodded in agreement. No need to discuss it further. They both understood the pain and frustration of an absent father. He would follow Dean’s example. “Yes, we should focus on the task at hand, on killing the Whore of Babylon.”

“Yeah, right.” Dean walked past him back into the hotel.

~*~


	3. The Final Countdown

Dean stares out across the highway on his way to make final preparations before saying yes to Michael. How stupid could he be, thinking that his thing with Cas was something real. As soon as God gave up on them, Cas gave up on Dean. Like he was gonna keep the necklace after all that. Without it, none of this would have ever happened. He wouldn’t have started having all those messed up dreams about Cas, they wouldn’t have fucked twice, and he would still have his 100% straight dude card. _It was worse than worthless! It was nothing but a fucking curse!_ And then Cas threw it all back in his face by asking him where the stupid thing was. _I got it the first time, you junkless bastard. It’s fucking over!_ He tightens his grip on the steering wheel and grits his teeth.

There had been a little while there after that time in the back seat where Dean had considered the possibility that he and Cas could be...something after the apocalypse was all over. He wasn’t sure what, exactly, but he’d imagined them driving around, hunting stuff, pranking his brother, maybe fooling around between cases and keeping it a secret. If Sam came back to the hotel while they were going at it, Cas could just teleport them to the roof, or another unoccupied room, or, hell, a field full of flowers for all he cared. And he would never have to take another shower after sex because Cas could always just clean them up. Yeah, that sounded pretty damn good. And the best part was that Cas already knew all about hunting, what with being a fucking angel and all. It sounded, well, honestly, kind of perfect. Dean wouldn’t be putting him into the line of fire unnecessarily by being with him. 

Unlike Lisa. She was absolutely fucking amazing and she knew about his hunting, but she wasn’t a hunter, and he didn’t want Ben to grow up to be one either. It was a terrible life. Deep down Dean knew that being with Lisa would cause nothing but problems for her and Ben. But if he was your average Joe instead of the hollow shell of a man he was, they would be the perfect family for him. He at least owed Lisa a goodbye before becoming Michael’s onesie.

He consults the map to Lisa’s that he’s drawn and pushes down on the gas.

~*~


End file.
